Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson alleges some Republicans with President-elect Donald J. Trump’s ear have a “weird homoerotic fascination” with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The British Conservative complains that “factions within the Republican Party… think [Putin is] an all-around stand-up guy, and they love his manly Christianity.”
“It’s complete nonsense. He’s a tyrant and a kleptocrat and a murderer and a very, very dangerous and bad man,” complains Johnson, a Ukraine fanatic who heaped praise on the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade in London recently.
Johnson also alleges Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is among those “whispering a lot of absolute nonsense” to President-elect Trump about ending the war in Ukraine. Orbán, a national conservative leader far friendlier to Trump than Johnson—who smeared the America First leader during his initial run for the presidency and welcomed his replacement by Joe Biden—has long advocated de-escalation and a peace deal in Ukraine, fearing the war’s impact on Ukraine’s Hungarian minority and European energy security.
Johnson has suggested British troops may have to be sent into Ukraine if Trump reduces American aid to the Eastern European country. However, after years of cutbacks under Johnson’s Conservative Party, the British Army would be unlikely to make a significant difference on the battlefield, even if deployed in its entirety due to its incredibly small size.
